


Seasonal

by KabochaKitsune



Series: A/B/O/tober 2020 [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: A/B/O/tober, A/B/O/tober 2020, Akuma no Mi | Devil Fruit, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Canon-Typical Violence, Competition, Courting Rituals, Courtship, Drinking, Drinking Games, Healing, M/M, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Not Crack Just Fun, Regeneration, Secondary Gender Presentation, Sparring, Underage Drinking, Zoan Akuma no Mi | Zoan Devil Fruit, a/b/o presentation, bird jokes, courtship displays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26781868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KabochaKitsune/pseuds/KabochaKitsune
Summary: Marco has maybe theoddestpresentation anyone in the Whitebeard Crew has ever seen.(T+ for sexual implications.)
Relationships: Fushicho Marco | Phoenix Marco/Whitebeard Pirates
Series: A/B/O/tober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948057
Comments: 3
Kudos: 85
Collections: A/B/O/tober 2020





	Seasonal

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sorry.
> 
> Fiddled with ages because young Marco is a hoot to write.
> 
> A/B/O/tober Day 2: Courting Displays

Marco had had maybe the _oddest_ presentation anyone on the ship had ever seen.

The first cycle usually hit out of nowhere. Later ones were easier to track, predict, sometimes even scent out ahead of time. Onset of secondary puberty was almost always sudden, unpredictable. Then again, Marco's was so odd, so unreal, that the crew barely recognized it for what it was in the first place, so it barely made a difference.

It started with Izo. After Pops, the marksman had the highest alcohol tolerance in the entire fleet. Challengers onshore were plenty; most of the fleet crew, and especially those of the _Moby Dick_ , knew better. Until Marco was around sixteen, old enough that everyone figured him for beta, with no presentation having happened one way or the other. "It wouldn't be fair," he'd teased across the table amid raucous laughter. "It's not like I can get alcohol poisoning, so I'd have no reason to stop."

Some of the laughs got louder. Some cut out entirely. All eyes were on Izo, who raised one sculpted brow, pulled a compact and lipstick from his sleeve to freshen his color, and responded easily without even looking at Marco: "Not unless you pass out."

It had taken _all night_ for Izo to finally drink Marco under the table. Thatch had tried to call it half a dozen times so he could close up the main galley and _sleep_ , before leaving them to it and sentencing the winner to helping with breakfast. Jozu was the only one present for the whole thing, sipping shandies so he wouldn't be drawn into knocking out with anyone else, intent on calling the winner. Every glass, every shot, Marco grinned through the whole bout, even as circles darkened under his eyes, even when he began to sweat, even through a round of hiccups both he and Izo found far too funny at three in the morning. Through the whole thing, he kept eye contact, both men leaned almost too close across the table, the younger man's eyes phoenix-blue from his body trying to burn through all that booze faster than he could drink it.

Or they'd _thought_ that had been the reason.

Jozu was the next target.

What idiot tried to wrestle a man made of diamond? "A man who won't die if his lungs get caved in," had been the easy response. Marco was all energy, hopping foot to foot like a boxer even before Jozu actually agreed to spar him. "C'mon, c'mon. I've got all new limits to test out with this thing." Jozu had tried to point out Marco would have his whole long life to do it, but, teenagers were impatient.

They went a dozen rounds. Jozu was hard to pin, but Marco was _fast_ , kept using Jozu's momentum against him. They finished out a full minute's timer without a pin on more than half the fights. Finally, they agreed to no use of Devil Fruit Powers except passive, and Jozu practically folded Marco in half when he couldn't fly or half-float out of the way. One of the nurses had been actually concerned, but Marco had waved her off, still grinning even through the sickening _crunches_ of bones popping back into place and knitting themselves back together, while his ribcage visibly reinflated under his skin and his arm untwisted. "Nah, don't worry about it. That was a blast."

Thatch did not bother to disguise his long-suffering groan when Marco appeared next to him on the next jungle island, basket on his back and one under each arm to match the two the cook was carrying.

"What's with you this week?"

"Dunno," Marco grinned, eyes alight.

"Yeah, well." Thatch bent the branches of a bush back with one foot, peering at its roots. "I don't have time for a competition right now."

"I know. Just tell me what you're looking for and I'll help."

Thatch paused. Cocked his eyebrow at the other man, carefully pulling his leg back to let the bush bend back into place without whacking his ankles.

"Help."

"Yeah. Why?"

"That's what I should be asking. Pops didn't have anything for you to do?"

"Not specifically."

"So why help me? Specifically?"

Marco blinked. It took him long enough to respond that Thatch was pretty sure their resident firebird, usually one of their better strategists, the guy who thought ten steps ahead like he breathed, hadn't actually considered that question.

"...Dunno," he'd answered at length, looking not at all perturbed or put off by his own answer. "Does it matter?"

Thatch guessed not, but filed the response away all the same. Marco filled all his baskets in half the time Thatch had set aside for supply gathering and went back for two more. Turned out the best guy for gathering eggs and tree-fruits was the bird. Made sense. So he'd been grateful for the help, and the bird-brat _lit up_ at the thanks. It was cute.

Weird. But cute.

Spending a whole day airborne and hauling supplies around seemed enough to work out whatever restless energy Marco was sitting on, so the crew chalked it up to teen energy, maybe an early dip into second-primary-puberty hormones, something he'd churn through now with his Fruit and not hit into at nineteen or twenty.

Until the next spring.

Days got longer, the sun got brighter, and Marco's eyes burned so blue they almost lit up the hot nights along with the stars. Pops noticed first. Later, the rest of the crew would have days of long conversations, off and on, when the Phoenix wasn't around, about whether Pops had been planning their next strike weeks ahead in the back of his head like he usually did - or if he'd popped a harebrained idea into Marco's lap to keep him busy. Busy it kept him, alright, up to and through and out the other side, in the Marine base strike that earned The Phoenix his goddamn infamy at seventeen years old.

On the anniversary, when Marco's eyes burned like coppered fireworks, Pops hauled him off for some one-on-one father-son celebration. Several days of it.

When they came back, Marco hadn't been able to get the smell of Pops totally out of his clothes, and his own curled through with the unmistakable tang of _alpha_.

Thatch went back and forth so many times on whether he wanted details it felt like he had an imprint of Marco's sandal on one side of his head and Izo's hand fan on the other.

Mostly he wanted to know how the _fuck_ it took the other man until adulthood to present. Marco didn't know himself, but his best guess was the Devil Fruit. "Since I can't die of old age either, if the books are right... maybe it slows down everything."

They'd come to learn that that was the short version.

By the time they picked up the washed-up wreck of the Spades Pirates' ship, and everyone on it, the whole crew had gotten used to their alpha First Division Commander being fairly even-keel for most of the year and fairly insufferable during the spring.

"Don't let your guard down," Thatch muttered to Ace on his way past one day, while their newest recruit was scrubbing wayward wine stains off the hull by the party deck (not that all of them weren't party decks at some point).

"Wait, what?" Ace craned his neck to peer after the cook, but he and his pompadour had already fled the scene. "Hey! Let my guard down for what?"

"Mating season," Izo murmured under his breath as he passed in the other direction.

Ace didn't hear him.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone else can be whatever secondary gender you want. ;P Puberty doesn't much care.
> 
> Want to support what I do? Find me on other sites through my [carrd](https://kabochakitsune.carrd.co/)!


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